Q & A : David Reger, Orange Unified Education Assn.

This week’s election of trustees for the Orange Unified School District followed a heated campaign in which incumbents Maureen Aschoff and Bill Lewis, who were reelected, ran on a platform advocating less government and union influence in schools. Factions within the school district are sharply at odds over such issues as teacher salaries, the expansion of the charter school concept and privatization of services. David Reger, a 55-year-old mathematics teacher who for three years has been president of the union, the Orange Unified Education Assn., spoke with Times correspondent Lesley Wright about the election. Q: During the election campaign, the candidates said they feel that the union has too much control over the district. What is your response?

A: The union has no control over the district. Should we? We definitely should have some influence in the district. We know what the educational system is all about. . . . If we had control, we’d be making more than the bottom salary in the county. . . . I’m into trying to work cooperatively, and OUEA will continue to work cooperatively.

Q: One of the issues raised during the campaign was that the union fosters a “liberal social agenda.” Is that true?

A: I’m not sure what that is. The free lunch program? The free breakfast program? Head Start? . . . You can’t teach hungry kids. I am for meeting the needs that kids have. If kids are going to die at 25 because we don’t give them a condom now, then that [program] is fine. . . . We’re not here just to help the kids who believe just the way we believe. We’re here to help them all.

Q: Are you concerned about the direction that the district is taking?

A: There is a philosophy I don’t like, this politically extreme philosophy. Will it affect the educational process? I don’t know. Thank goodness for the Education Code, thank goodness for the legal system, thank goodness for a lot of things they view as impediments that are really safeguards. . . . They will raise a lot of non-educational issues, such as prayer in school, that will raise dissension and that will have to be argued and fought about. That takes time that should not be taken.

Q: Why has Orange Unified had so much turmoil?

A: I think it is because we have elected people to the board who do not have public education as their No. 1 concern. . . . Parents do not see how bad things are behind the scenes. They see their kids are getting a good education at the local schools, and they just don’t get upset enough to say, “We have got to elect good school board members.” . . . It was the teachers who saved the district from bankruptcy by voluntarily taking a pay cut, by taking a 10% increase in class size. Maybe we should have let the district go bankrupt. Maybe that would have awakened the community.